Tramping Food: The Backcountry Cuisine 24 hour ration Pack

A 24 hour total meal package from Backcountry Cuisine...

Several months ago I was in the Bivouac store here in Christchurch and spotted their supply of Backcountry Cuisine 24 hour ration packs. These packs are packed to be 100% complete and hold all of the food items you would need for a 24 hour period. 

The Backcountry Cuisine 24 hour ration pack no. 667

I decided to buy one of the ration packs to have a look at what was inside and see if indeed it contains enough nutrition to keep you going through a whole day. Backcountry Cuisine sell four varieties...two have meat as the main meals and the other two are vegetarian. The cost for one of these packs is $35 NZ dollars which is pretty good when you consider the freeze dried meals inside add up to $30 by themselves. 

Table of contents on a Backcountry ration pack no. 667

The main meals are freeze dried single serve portions from the Backcountry Cuisine meal selection, the item number for this particular ration is 667. I took this on a trip to Nelson Lakes National Park recently and this is what I thought about it....

Contents of the BCC Ration Pack...

There is a table of contents on the front of the ration pack which details all of the items contained in the pack. This particular variety contains a one serve meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner...the meals could be eaten in whatever order best suits your requirements.

The version I brought was one of the meat based varieties and had meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner a drinks pack and snacks. 

BCC 24 hour ration pack table of contents....no. 667

This ration pack contains the following food/miscellaneous items:

Main meals:Porridge Supreme (one serve)

Classic Beef Curry (one serve)

Roast Lamb and Vegetables (one serve)

Snacks: 1 pkt Candy Chocolate (Smarties)

1 pkt trail mix 

I pkt Oatie Biscuit (two biscuits)

1 pkt jelly beans

Drink Pack: Orange Drink

1 hot chocolate

2 tea bags

2 coffee sachets

4 sugar sachets

4 creamer sachets

2 Salt sachets

1 Pepper sachet

Miscellaneous Items: 1 plastic spoon

1 small packet tissues

What they are giving you in this ration pack is three meals (breakfast/lunch/dinner), snacks for during the day and drinks to accompany the meals. That is basically all that most people will need when out on a tramping trip. 

Contents of  BCC ration pack no. 667 laid out on a table....

All the main meals are freeze dried so you will just need to heat water and add it to the pack so he meals are quick, simple and little to no clean-up required. If you do not like the particular meals in the ration pack you could of course change them but this would mean extra cost. 

BCC ration pack no. 667: main meals, drink sachet, ANZAC biscuits, tissue and spoon

Having three-four snacks for during the day is my standard system as well...all of the packs are large so it might be hard eating all of a particular snack in one sitting. I ate half of each and then had the other half for a dessert after my lunch/evening meal. 

BCC ration pack no. 667: breakfast meal,snack packs, drinks kit and bag

The contents are packed in a sturdy plastic bag with a table of contents and a break down of the nutritional value in each of the individual components. The tissue are included for toileting purposes and you even get a spoon to eat it all with. 

The BCC 24 hour ration taste test....

My original plan was to camp at Kerr Bay and do some day hikes but because it was raining and because the campground was shut for maintenance I walked into Lakehead Hut and stayed for two nights over three days. 

The cooking bench in Lakehead Hut, Nelson Lakes National Park

On the first day I ate a homemade ration that I had made up for the occasion...

My homemade 24 hour ration and snack pack....

I had the Backcountry Cuisine ration on the second day while lazing about in the hut. It was a cold, wet and windy day so I spent half the day in my sleeping bag drinking tea and reading my book. A better test would have been to use it on a day of physical activity but beggars cant be choosers as they say....

First up was the Porridge Supreme which I ate for breakfast...I added two of the creamer packets to the porridge to make it more creamy. There is a separate packet of brown sugar in the porridge pack for scattering over your pog. BCC freeze dried porridge is good and has fruit added to the meal to increase the calorific count. A good start...

The chocolate candies aka smarties in the ration pack

I had the snack meals over the course of the day..the jelly beans and candy covered chocolate were very nice...similar to other commercially produced products. The biscuit was good...crispy, not too sweet, nice flavour and good for dunking in your tea. Yum!!!

The chocolate candies aka Smarties in the ration pack

I was not so fond of the trail mix....it consisted of dried fruit, peel, nuts, banana chips, chocolate chunks and coconut. I found it to be overly sweet and I hate coconut so it was not to my taste at all. I would definitely exchange the trail mix for something more savoury like salted nuts or a Bhaji mix. 

Trail mix snack pack from BCC Ration Pack no. 667

For lunch I had the Classic Beef Curry augmented with a packet of 2 minute noodles...I often eat this as a tramping meal as the two go together very well. With the meal I had a cup of tea with sugar and the remainder of the jelly beans. The classic beef curry is one of the better meals in the Backcountry range so I did enjoy it. 

Preparing the Classic Beef Stew for lunch...with 2 minute noodles...

I had the Roast Lamb with Vegetables for dinner later in the day...the lamb and the vegetables are mixed together with the gravy powder. There is also a small sachet of mashed potato in the pack...the lamb is nice with a lovely savoury gravy and the mashed spuds are good especially after I added a squirt of olive oil to them. 

All of these are classic freeze dried meals and just need hot water added to them...that is sum total of the preparation needed.  

Contents of the Roast Lamb and Vegetables meal.....

Overall I found the meal to be palatable and filling...I don't think I would have felt hungry subsisting on these meals over the short term. If this was all you had to eat for an extended period I think you might start feeling a mite hungry. Overall my experience of the meals and snacks was very good with the exception of the trail mix which I really did not like at all. 

The BCC ration pack brew kit...

The ration pack had an extensive drinks kit included with it and consisted of; 

Drink Pack: Orange Drink

1 hot chocolate

2 tea bags

2 coffee sachets

4 sugar sachets

4 creamer sachets

2 Salt sachets

1 Pepper sachet

All of the contents were Porters brand which I have seen in hotels and motels throughout New Zealand. The quality is OK I drank all of the items and didn't have a problem with any of the items....

BCC drinks kit from ration pack no. 667

I had coffee with my breakfast and tea in the mid morning and mid afternoon...hot chocolate after dinner. 

I would probably get rid of the creamer packs as they are not all that useful to me....I like both tea and coffee black and these non dairy creamers always have problems dissolving in your drink...who wants to chew chunks of powdery creamer in their morning coffee. 

Contents of the brew kit laid out,,BCC ration pack no. 667

There is also a loose pack of Vitafresh drink powder in the ration pack...this is the brand I usually carry when I go out in the bush in this case it was orange flavor. I mixed this up and had it with my evening meal as per usual...powdered drink sachets are a real morale improver after a long day tramping. 

What I would add to the ration pack....

While these ration packs cover most of the basic requirements there are a few items missing to make these total complete meal kits for a 24 hour period.  

The Backcountry Cuisine 24 hour ration pack.....

Here are some items I would add to these packs if I was using them on a regular basis:

Instant Soup:

First up I would add some form of instant soup to the packs...the obvious choice would be Continental or Maggi Cup-O-Soups...they have many flavour's and just require hot water to prepare. These are individual soups and make one cup or about 250mls. 

Cup-O-Soup...Dutch Curry...yum, yum!!!!

Other choices could be instant Miso, an Asian noodle soup or Continental/Knorr/Maggi simmer soups. These require slightly more preparation but are much tastier...the simmer soups make 1 liter (enough for two-three trampers).  All these soups can be found at large supermarkets or Asian food stores in New Zealand.

Knorr Simmer Soup...Chicken Noddle

Continental Simmer Soup....light, easy to prepare and flavour-some....

Water purification tablets:

The average adult needs from 6-8 liters or water per day preferably taken as just water but also as tea, soup, powdered drinks, coffee etc. In New Zealand you will often find that you can simply take water straight from a lake, river or hut water tank but this is slowly changing. With more people in the backcountry water sources are becoming tainted...pollution, human/animal waste, viruses and other ailments have entered many of our previously pristine water sources.

Aquatabs water purification tablets....

This means we need to treat our water either by boiling, chemical treatment or filtering. I use chemical treatment methods...chlorine based Aquatabs at a ratio of one tablet per 1 liter of water. I would therefore add Aquatabs or something similar to these packs...probably 6-8 tablets per 24 hour period.

Jerky style steak bars:

Another item I would consider adding to this ratio pack are Jack Links jerky meat bars or some similar product. I always carry these steak bars...they come in three flavors; BBQ,  Peppered and Teriyaki...all of the flavors are delicious and would up the protein content of the packs. I would eat these as snacks usually mid morning or mid afternoon. 

The Jack Links steak bar....BBQ, Peppered or Teriyaki flavor the choice is yours...

Dish scrub pads:

You need something to clean your cooking kit with my go to option is a 2 cm by 2 cm square of scrubbing pad and an all purpose outdoor soap like Dr Bonar's or Sea to Summit. I would add a scrub pad in a small zip-lock bag to the packs and carry a bottle of soap for general purpose use. 

Green scrubbing pads.....

Sugar substitute:

While these packs have four serves of sugar I usually find I need more than this in an average day. You could carry more sugar but this is quite a heavy food item...better still would be a artificial sweetener...my go to choice is Splenda. I carry a small dispenser of Splenda with me every-time I go tramping they contain 200 tablets equivalent to 200 spoons of sugar and weigh only 3 gms. 

How can you complain about that ratio....

Splenda artificial sweetener tablets

By adding these few items these ration packs become much more useful items to take into the outdoors. You could add/subtract a lot more but obviously that would defeat the purpose of buying a 24 hour ration pack.....

My conclusion: How good are these ration packs?

Overall I think this is a good concept and would provide you with all of the nutrition you needed for a 24 hour period in the outdoors. I have no real problems with the contents they are all perfectly acceptable. My main concern is the weight...850 gms is a lot of weight for one days food, my home made rations usually top out at 600 gms per day. For a single day it would be fine but anything over 1-2 days would require careful consideration of weight to calorific content.  

The homemade ration pack I also took to Nelson Lakes NP...580gms!!!

I don't know that I would carry these all of the time but they are certainly worth considering for their ease of preparation and convenience. You can find them at most outdoor stores...in Christchurch I have seen them at Hunting and Fishing, Bivouac and Torpedo Seven...

Jon making himself comfortable in Lakehead Hut, Nelson Lakes NP

Maybe grab one the next time you are heading into the outdoors. 

Cheers!!!