Video Three: Food, Part Two, Determining your daily Snacks to achieve 3000 calories per Day

Video embed: 

Now that we've determined the calorie count of our 4 daily set meals, we need to make up the difference between that amount and our goal of 3000 calories per day with snacks.

In our last page in this series, we determined that the of calories from our 4 set meals is around 2155 calories. This leaves 845 calories per day we must get from our snack selection to reach our goal of 3000 calories per day.

In the video, for a 5 day snow trip, my set dinner calorie count was 1680 calories, which indicated that I needed 1320 snack calories a day to reach my goal of 3000 calories per day.

This is a typical list of snacks I bring backpacking

Name                                Calories per ounce                Carbs                 Fiber

Corn nuts                                    126                                     7%                       8%

Cashews, roast & salt              172                             7g, 2%                   0g, 0%

Butter Toffee Peanuts               140                             18g, 6%                1g, 4%  

Sunflower, roast & salt             144                                8g, 3%               4g, 16%

Roasted Green Peas               150                                       7%                      16%

Cranberries, Sweet, dried           69                                18g, 6%           1.8g, 7.5%

Banana Chips                             147                             16.5g, 6%               22g, 9%

Deglet dates, Pitted                      86                             20.5g, 7%              2g, 8.5%

Apricots, Turkish                           70                               18g, 6%                3g, 12%

Dried Cherries                              70                              16g,  5%                5g, 20%

Milk chocolate                              136                           

Hard Candy, Lemon drops       140

Now we make a list of our proposed snack foods, with their calorie count for one ounce. Then we total the amount of calories for one ounce of each snack a day.

The above list, when one ounce per day of each is consumed, is 1450 calories. Our set meal count of 2155 calories, when combined with one ounce of each of the above snacks, equals 3605 daily calories, which would be excellent for a 220 lb backpacker doing full days on the trail.

I require 3000 calories a day when I weigh in at around 160 lbs of weight, while doing full days on the trail. So I could subtract about 1/2 ounce of each snack listed above, and come in at just under 3000 calories per day.

After you establish the weight of the complimentary contribution of snack calories to your set meal calorie count to make your daily calorie intake, you then multiply the snack portion by the amount of days you are on the trail.

Breakfast

Granola, typical average           110                              18g. 6%                  2g, 8%

Cocoa powder w/

milk and sugar                           100                              16g, 5%               11g, 10%

Lunch

Ramen, 3 oz average                380                               52g, 18%              2g, 6%

Tillamook Cheddar                    120                                      0                           0

Triscut Crackers                         120                               20g, 7%                 3g, 12%

Dinners

Typical freeze dried dinner for two, for me alone: 575 to 640 calories

Sources for counting calories

Calorie Count

The Daily Plate